


all i want for christmas (is you)

by lestered (lgbtrobed)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Awkward Flirting, Christmas, Coming Out, Crushes, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Very Very Light Angst, alternate 2009, and they are also smol, their age gap is smaller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbtrobed/pseuds/lestered
Summary: He finds himself huffing out a small, high-pitched laugh that he couldn’t even dream of passing off as part of his natural register. “Hah… yeah. Mhm. Nice. Morn… ing. Yup. Sure is.”Dan’s smile falls a tiny bit, a hint of confusion flickering behind his eyes. Unfortunately, that’s an expression Phil is all too familiar with receiving.AU where Dan is Phil's Christmas coworker crush, and awkward boys are awkward.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 17
Kudos: 110
Collections: Phandom Fic Fests Holiday Exchange 2020





	all i want for christmas (is you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yikesola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/gifts).



> merry christmas/happy holidays renee! thank you so much for this prompt, it was a lot of fun.

_ It’s Monday, the 7th of December, 2009. It’s just another day. Another completely normal day, no more extraordinary than yesterday or tomorrow or any of the other days, ever, which means you’re fine. Which means you’ve got nothing to worry about. Which means you got this. You look like an idiot pacing around the parking lot, you know.  _

_ Shut up, no one’s even here right now, and even if they were, they wouldn’t be paying attention to you.  _

_ Okay. But you still look objectively stupid.  _

Phil stops pacing and grimaces at himself. He’s gotten pretty good at giving himself pep talks over the years—being the professional ball of anxiety that he is kind of necessitates it. Still, even Peppy Phil can’t convince Regular Phil that he’s not being a teensy bit overreact-y right now. 

The cold winter wind nips at his cheeks as he glances up at the sign. 

_ Yours Truly: Stationery and Holiday Gift Shop.  _

He bites his lip. 

_ Yup. Same place you’ve been working all week. Same place you worked last Christmas, and the Christmas before that, too.  _

_ Yeah, but the last two Christmases didn’t have— _

_ Just shut up and go inside before you’re late.  _

He sighs and nods before finishing off his cup of coffee and tossing the Starbucks cup into the bin beside the door. The caffeine probably isn’t doing his nerves any favours, but it’s either that or fall asleep at the till. He bounces on his toes a couple times, shakes out his arms and hands, and then steps forward at last, pushing his way through the employee entrance and into the break room. Immediately, he’s greeted with the warmth and the soft jingle of holiday music that make up the shop’s ever-present festive atmosphere. 

Dan’s standing over at the punch clock. He turns towards Phil just as the door swings shut behind him with a soft  _ thud,  _ the corners of his mouth turning up into a small but genuine smile. 

“Morning, Phil,” he greets him with a little tilt of his head. 

Phil’s incredibly lucky that he was just outside in the cold, the redness in his cheeks easily explained by that rather than the goddamn tomato-face blush he’d surely be sporting right now had he been standing at room temperature. 

_ Say good morning back, Phil.  _

He finds himself huffing out a small, high-pitched laugh that he couldn’t even dream of passing off as part of his natural register. “Hah… yeah. Mhm. Nice. Morn… ing. Yup. Sure is.”

Dan’s smile falls a tiny bit, a hint of confusion flickering behind his eyes. Unfortunately, that’s an expression Phil is all too familiar with receiving. 

Not just from Dan, to be fair. But he’s pretty sure he hasn’t made a stellar impression with him so far, and that’s very upsetting given how  _ pretty _ he is.

“...Right,” Dan glances away briefly. “Well, um. I’ll see you out there, I guess?”

He looks back at Phil with a slightly raised brow, like he’s questioning:  _ I will see you out there, right? Or are you just gonna stand in here and combust? _

All Phil can do is nod stupidly and watch as Dan gives him a final hesitant nod, turns, and heads out of the break room and into the store.

The door shuts behind him. 

Phil closes his eyes and thunks his head against the wall.

  
  


*

  
  


The thing about Dan is he’s unfairly attractive. Seeing him for the first time had actually taken Phil aback a little, like a slap in the face.

A sexy, sexy slap in the face.

Phil doesn’t really get crushes. Not usually. Not anymore. He represses, because that’s what he’s good at. Feelings for a boy? Absolutely not. He learned at a young age that even his most innocent crushes are wrought with guilt and shame, and that’s terribly uncomfortable, and what better way to cope than by simply pretending that his feelings don’t exist? Even at uni, he’s allowed himself little more than a host of messy one-night stands. Every time he’s tried to actually shoot his shot, it’s come back to bite him in the ass somehow. He’s known for a long time: he’s got a lot of love to give, but no one really wants it, so he buries it instead.

Except now, there’s Dan.

And Dan has beautiful brown eyes and dark, thick eyelashes and hair that looks so silky and smooth, Phil just wants to run his fingers through it all day long. He has dimples in his cheeks that Phil would very much like to kiss, and pretty pink lips that he’d like to kiss even more, especially when he smiles. His fringe and his pierced ears and the way he’s just about the same height as Phil; his skinny jeans and festival wristbands and the way his neck looks like just the perfect place to nuzzle into. Warm soft skin, the spicy scent of cologne and slightly salty taste of his skin, maybe sensitive enough that he’d moan a little if Phil kissed him there, feeling his pulse under his lips and  _ hm, it’d sure be nice if he was into a little bit of biting, because—  _

“Phil?”

_ Crap. _

He shakes himself out of his stupor. Dan’s sitting across from him at one of the tables in the break room, snacking on a bag of Malteasers from the vending machine. He pops another one into his mouth as he looks at Phil apprehensively.

“Yeah?” Phil asks, while his brain scrambles to remember what they were talking about. 

_Final Fantasy,_ he thinks. Yeah, that’s right. Dan loves Final Fantasy, just like him. Oh, and Muse. Muse is his favourite band, just like Phil’s. And he likes Lost and Lord of the Rings and Studio Ghibli and Pokemon and old-school Sonic. Of course Phil had started to space out, thinking about how perfect he is.

Dan raises an eyebrow at him, looking half-amused and half-confused. “You looked like maybe you were gonna ask me something.”

_ Yeah. Will you marry me? _

“Oh, uh, no,” Phil sounds nonchalant enough, he thinks. “Sorry, just zoned out. I didn’t get that much sleep last night.” He punctuates his not-technically-a-lie with a sip of his coffee. It’s pretty shit, even by Phil’s standards, but it’s free coffee at work. He can’t complain. 

That seems to be a good enough answer for Dan. “Oh,” he shrugs and slumps down a little in his chair. “Yeah, me neither. I never do. I’m basically nocturnal.”

“Maybe you were supposed to be a raccoon or a badger or something,” Phil says without really thinking, “But god made you a human by accident instead.”

Of course, it dawns on him as soon as he’s finished speaking how dumb he sounds. _Other people don’t think these thoughts, Phil. This is why you’ve never had a boyfriend._

But Dan bursts out laughing, much to Phil's surprise. Not mean laughter, either; more like he’s actually tickled by what Phil has to say. “Mate,” he shakes his head a little, “You’re so fucking weird, you know?”

He does. Anyone who talks to him for more than five minutes has a tendency to tell him as much. Sometimes it’s derisive, sometimes it isn’t. Dan doesn’t sound derisive. He actually sounds… happy. Maybe even fond.

Or maybe Phil’s just so desperate for Dan to like him that he’s hearing things now. Either way, he relaxes and smiles a bit. 

“Damn it,” Dan sighs, glancing up at the clock on the wall behind Phil’s head. “Break’s almost over.” Phil watches him tilt his head back, tipping the remainder of his Malteasers into his mouth, and definitely does  _ not  _ make note of how impressively wide he can open it. 

Because that’s not relevant to his interests. 

At all. 

“Yeah,” he tears his eyes away and chugs the rest of his coffee down, mostly as an excuse to think before he speaks. “We should go, I guess.” He stands up to toss his cup in the trash and Dan follows suit, their shoulders bumping a little as they make their way out of the break room at the same time.

Ten minutes before close, Dan slips a piece of paper across the counter to him. At first he thinks it’s just a spare receipt, until he looks on the back and sees a phone number scribbled in red pen. His stomach flutters as he glances back over in Dan’s direction.

“In case you want a fellow badger to talk to next time you can’t sleep,” he explains with a shrug, but Phil swears his cheeks look a little rosier than usual. 

Somehow, he nods and tucks the paper into his pocket without bursting out into song.

It’s a pretty close call, though.

  
  


*

  
  


He’s been staring at his phone for hours. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.

_ Dan wouldn’t have given you his number if he didn’t want you to text him.  _

He rubs both of his hands over his face and then glances at the time on his laptop screen again. 2:30. Is texting Dan at 2:30am gonna look desperate? He specifically said  _ next time you can’t sleep.  _ But what if he was exaggerating about how late he stays up? How the hell is this gonna look if Dan’s actually asleep right now and doesn’t see it til the morning? How pathetic is he gonna seem then?

_ For god’s sake, Lester, get it together.  _

He takes a deep breath in through his nose and shovels another handful of cola sweets into his mouth before picking up his phone and looking at Dan’s contact page. His heart skips when he hits  _ New Message.  _

**_[2:32am] phil:_ ** _ *pokes head out of badger hole to search for fellow badgers in the night* _

He practically throws his phone back down on the bed in front of him after he sits  _ send _ . His palms are sweating like they would be if Dan were right here in front of him. God, he’s a mess. Honestly, maybe it’s better if Dan doesn’t text back. He’s completely out of his element here. 

Just seconds later, his phone vibrates. He grabs it, shaking his head at himself for being so dramatic about the whole thing. He exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding before looking at the screen. 

**_[2:33am] dan:_ ** _ sorry……..who is this? lol _

Phil’s eyes widen as he reads the message, then reads it again. Oh god. Oh  _ god,  _ Dan doesn’t even remember giving him his number. Or maybe he does remember, but he regrets it. Or maybe he gave him the wrong number on purpose, just to fuck with him. 

In any case, abort. Abort  _ right now.  _

**_[2:34am] phil:_ ** _ nvm wrong number sorry _

He tosses it even farther away on the bed this time. His whole body is flushed and too warm as rubs his hands tiredly down over his face.

Is this what it’s like to have a proper, serious crush? How do straight people ever get anything done?

The phone vibrates again and he groans inwardly, wishing he could just rewind to two minutes ago and tell himself to be a little less confident. Then he could’ve avoided this whole thing. He waits a few moments before he reaches for the phone again. Just as he does, it vibrates a second time. 

That’s unsettling. 

He steels himself before unlocking the screen. 

**_[2:34am] dan:_ ** _ fuck, wait, i was just kidding. phil. i know it’s you. who else would be trying to initiate badger roleplay with me at half 2 in the morning? _

**_[2:35am] dan:_ ** _ sorry. that was dumb _

Phil sighs loudly as he reads it over, dropping his phone on the bed and his head into his hands afterwards. He feels himself beginning to cool down, an entire tonne of solid panic lifting off of his chest now.

After some time, he finds the courage to reply.

**_[2:37am] phil:_ ** _ oh my god, you dick _

The three little typing bubbles pop up on Dan’s side of the screen almost immediately.

**_[2:38am] dan:_ ** _ ...oops? :P _

He’s adorable over text, too. Great.

Despite his halfhearted attempt at indignation toward Dan for being too charming, Phil smiles and lays back in bed, phone on his chest as he flutters his eyes closed like a giddy schoolkid. He feels all warm and light and happy and… okay, maybe having a crush isn’t actually  _ that _ bad.

Or maybe it is. He’s still got plenty of time to do something stupid, but he stops that train of thought when his phone vibrates on his chest again.

**_[2:40am] dan:_ ** _ i’m glad you texted, actually. we didn’t get to finish ranking final fantasy before lunch ended. _

Phil smiles even wider at that. 

Talking to Dan shouldn’t be so hard. They like all the same stuff. Maybe he can actually make a point or two now that his pretty face isn’t distracting him while he tries to think.

He curls up in bed to get more comfortable and sighs happily as his thumbs start flying over his phone screen.

  
  


*

  
  


Sometimes, they reach for a plastic bag at the same time and their hands brush. Or their feet accidentally knock against each other under the table during breaks. Or their shoulders bump when they’re passing each other in a narrow aisle.

It’s magical. 

It’s actually a little  _ too _ magical, which means Phil is more touch-starved than usual. Going back over his dating history on a particularly slow workday, he realizes he hasn’t slept with anyone since October. That’s a pretty long while. Maybe that’s why he’s so on edge lately.

But at least he can talk to Dan now without wanting to bury himself alive afterwards. They’ve been texting every night for the past two weeks and Phil’s in awe that they haven’t run out of things to talk about yet. It’s kind of amazing, but something about texting Dan is just so easy. And eventually that translates to being able to talk more easily in person—even if he does still blush or stumble over his words whenever Dan stands too close, or smiles at him, or exists in general.

Things are more or less going really well. They’re unloading the day’s shipment, just the two of them in the warehouse moving boxes from the delivery truck to the storage shelves.

“Please, please tell me you’re joking,” Phil says as he pauses to roll his sleeves up. “You have such good taste in everything else, I can’t accept the fact that you’ve never seen an episode of  _ Buffy.” _

Dan just shrugs. “I guess I never felt compelled. The premise didn’t seem that revolutionary.”

Phil’s jaw drops. “A young woman chosen by fate to fight against the forces of darkness, forming a loyal gang of friends and balancing high school with the ever-present, inescapable threat of evil? That’s not revolutionary?”

Dan looks over at him in amusement. “Not enough to cut into my Xbox time.”

“Unbelievable,” Phil mutters, setting a box down in front of himself. He grabs one of their box cutters and slices into the packing tape, still muttering to himself as he does. “Not revolutionary enough. It’s only considered one of the best written shows of all time, created for the purpose of subverting sexist Hollywood horror tropes, got David Boreanaz his own spinoff, it’s a gay culture staple… Tara and Willow! I mean, how can you…”

He trails off when it occurs to him that he doesn’t hear Dan shuffling around next to him, stacking units on shelves. He looks up just to see him staring with wide eyes and an expression Phil can’t quite place. It looks surprised but also nervous, almost. Phil raises an eyebrow and goes back over what he could’ve said to elicit that. His own eyes widen and his cheeks grow hot when he realizes. And at almost the exact same moment that it dawns on him, Dan blurts:

“You said gay culture.”

Phil nods slowly and, for some reason, takes a step back. Probably because he can’t make heads or tails of what Dan’s feeling right now; his tone is unreadable and he still can’t decipher what kind of face he’s making. 

“...Yeah,” Phil says cautiously. “I did.”

And he hadn’t considered the implications of it, but it occurs to him that Dan doesn’t know he’s gay. Or didn’t know, at least. Did he just come out to Dan? Yeah, he’s pretty sure he did. He can count on less than two hands the number of people in his life who know he’s gay and suddenly Dan, a guy he’s known for less than a month, is on that list. He didn’t mean to, but he can’t be held accountable for what he says during a Buffy tangent. Everyone who knows him knows that.

Well, Dan doesn’t know that. And now that he thinks about it, what the hell is the deal with Phil having a crush on him, anyway? Who decided that was a good idea? Dan’s obviously straight, if his reaction says anything, and… 

Phil’s stomach churns as his mind wanders towards some of the darker possibilities. Because if Dan’s homophobic, then things are about to turn sour very quickly. He hadn’t considered that even for a second, really. Dan’s too nice, too smart to be bigoted like that, isn’t he? But what if—?

“Are you?” Dan asks with an awkward clearing of his throat. He looks almost pained, saying it. “Gay, I mean?”

Phil takes a moment to brace himself before nodding. He’s pretty sure he’s sweating bullets, but what does it even matter at this point? 

“Yeah,” he sighs. He looks carefully at Dan as he speaks. “I’m gay.”

Dan just keeps looking at him. 

“I-I mean, I’m not saying every gay person watches Buffy,” Phil starts rambling, because the silence is unbearable and for some reason he’s frozen in place, unable to run away. He shoves his hands in his pockets so hopefully Dan won’t see how they’re shaking. “Or that everyone who watches it is gay. I mean, my straight friends like it. It’s a really good show. It’s just, you know, lesbians…”

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Dan cuts him off, breaking eye contact and shaking his head to himself a little. “Look, I just remembered I’m supposed to be… somewhere right now. Can you cover the rest of this? Thanks.”

Phil doesn’t get a chance to answer before Dan’s pushing past him without another word, hastily making his way out of the warehouse. Like,  _ really  _ hastily, like he can’t leave quickly enough.

And Phil just stands there watching him go, with his feet cemented to the floor and nothing left to say. 

  
  


*

  
  


The logical thing to do is call in sick, Phil thinks the next morning. He does a good enough sick voice over the phone, and the store is usually overstaffed anyway. It wouldn’t be a big deal. Plus, he kind of does feel like throwing up at the thought of facing Dan again after yesterday. The sick thing might not even be a lie.

He stands in front of his bedroom window, watching the snow come down in fat, fluffy clumps as he thinks it over. 

Last night was the first time since originally exchanging numbers that he and Dan didn’t text at all. That had blown away Phil’s tiny last shred of hope that maybe Dan actually did have somewhere to be yesterday. 

Nope. He’d just been uncomfortable. And that’s that on that.

He stands in that same spot at his window, silent crisis escalating further and further until an indignant thought pops into his head. 

_ What the hell does he have to feel uncomfortable about? _

So Phil’s gay. There’s nothing wrong with that. He’s spent the last eight goddamn years figuring that out, and he still doesn’t feel right all of the time but at least by now he knows, deep down, that boys can love other boys and it’s not unnatural or gross or shameful. 

And it’s not something that the people around him should be uncomfortable about. If Dan’s uncomfortable around him because he’s gay, then that’s  _ his  _ problem.

That’s the sentiment he holds onto while he gets ready for work, hustling around the room to make up for all the time he spent fretting. He catches the bus into town just in time and only when he’s seated does the adrenaline start to wear off and it dawns on him that he’s about to see Dan again and regardless of how much right is on his side, it’s still gonna be awkward as hell. He bounces his legs and twiddles his thumbs and hums softly to himself for the entire ride in an attempt to keep the nervous energy from building. He’s not sure it works, and the sour-faced old couple sitting across the aisle keep shooting him disapproving looks. 

He can’t bring himself to care even a little.

When he walks into the break room to clock in, Dan’s not there, which gives him a little flutter of hope. Maybe  _ Dan’s  _ taken the easy way out and called in sick today, and he can delay this awkwardness a little longer after all. 

He punches in, puts his stuff in his locker and then heads out. He slows down when he gets close to the checkout and sees that Dan actually is here, standing at his usual till next to Phil’s empty one. 

_ Huh. Dan’s never early.  _

Maybe he purposely got here early so they wouldn’t have to run into each other in the break room, Phil thinks bitterly, but he gets distracted from that train of thought as he gets a little closer and sees a large Starbucks cup sitting by his register. Dan stares straight down at the counter in front of him while Phil apprehensively steps behind his. Under the Starbucks cup, he notices, is a receipt folded in half. He slips it out and unfolds it, noticing Dan’s now-familiar scribbly penmanship on the blank side.

_ Sorry for acting like a dick. I didn’t mean to be weird. I’m bi, or something, I haven’t really figured it out yet, and I was just surprised. I’ve never met another not-straight person before. Please don’t hate me. _

_ PS: it’s a white chocolate mocha, because you said you liked them once. I got one too and it was way too fucking sweet. You have horrible taste. _

Phil reads it over once, and then he reads it again. And then he reads it a third time, just to make sure he’s seeing this right, that he’s not hallucinating these words and Dan actually wrote this, and he doesn’t hate him and _holy shit,_ _he_ _likes guys too,_ and he’s feeling so many good things at once like relief and hope and pure ecstasy that he feels like he should faint or start crying or something, but he doesn’t. He holds it together, biting his lip and nodding a little to himself before stuffing the receipt into his pocket. 

He’ll give himself a massive pat on the back for that later.

Then he chances a look over at Dan, who just happens to be looking at him, too. His eyes are wide, cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted and Phil thinks he understands that look. He thinks Dan’s feeling shy and a little scared and his heart melts a little, and not just because he has a crush. But because he’s been there too, unsure and alone and in need of a friend. 

It’d be a privilege to be that friend for Dan. If he’ll have him, that is. He catches his eye and smiles softly and mouths a  _ thank you,  _ before picking his drink up and taking a sip. Dan’s eyes light up a little as he smiles back, cheeks dimpling adorably. 

Something about that makes the mocha taste extra sweet. 

  
  


*

  
  


They do talk about it.

Phil’s not sure if they’re going to at first. Maybe Dan’s content to just leave things with the note, and Phil doesn’t want to push him to talk about what’s obviously a delicate subject. But Dan brings it up that night when they’re unloading another shipment in the warehouse. It’s a bigger one, now that Christmas is getting closer, and their manager couldn’t be arsed to stay, so they’ve got the keys to lock up. They might as well go slow, get more hours on the clock.

“When did you know?” Dan asks, indelicately dropping a very heavy box of envelopes by his feet.

Phil looks over at him, and for normalcy’s sake he almost wants to ask,  _ know what?,  _ but that would be stupid. They both know what Dan’s asking him about. He bites his lip and sighs a little. 

“I was like… twelve, I think?” He says. “I never fancied girls, but I didn’t think that much about it until I wanted to kiss some random shirtless hunk on the beach. Then I realized, maybe I needed to figure a few things out.”

Dan snorts a little. “A beach? That’s a pretty public place to have your sexual awakening.”

Thinking back on it… yeah, it was. “Well,” he shrugs, “The universe doesn’t let me take a lot of breaks from embarrassing myself, so.” He subtly glances over at Dan again before beginning to organise and stack assorted boxes of pens. “What about you?”

There’s a brief pause before Dan laughs hollowly. “That’s a great question,” he sighs. “Who fucking knows. Fancying people and dating and hooking up… it was always just a huge confusing mess. And it didn’t help that my town was pretty ripe with homophobia, so.” He shrugs and shakes his head a little. “It’s… whatever. I guess I feel like I can try figuring it out, now that I’m out of there. That’s why I chose Manchester for uni, it was the furthest away that accepted me.”

“Oh,” Phil frowns a little. Because yeah, Rossendale isn’t exactly progressive either, but he can’t imagine wanting to be as far away from it as possible. It’s still his home. 

He doesn’t want to say that to Dan, though. He might strike a nerve. “Manchester,” he says instead. “That’s a really good school. What are you studying?”

Dan scoffs. “Law.”

Phil doesn’t know what that scoff means, so he just nods and keeps going. “Oh, wow. Law. You must be pretty clever.”

“I’m dropping out.”

So much for that as a conversation starter, then. 

“Oh,” he clears his throat and scrambles for something else to talk about. “Um…”

“You don’t have to be awkward about it, Phil,” Dan says with a tinge of amusement, and lightly kicks the side of his shoe. “I should’ve known it wasn’t gonna work. Seriously, can you picture me as a lawyer? I don’t think so.”

Phil tilts his head consideringly. It’s true, Dan doesn’t seem like the lawyer type. 

“I got permission to stay in the halls over the holidays and then once we close for the season here, I have another job lined up at a music store,” he continues. “Somehow I convinced the owners that I’m qualified to teach piano. Or maybe I didn’t convince them, and they just felt bad for me. And I’ve saved enough to start renting a really…  _ really  _ shitty flat. I’ll be fine.”

Phil lets that sink in. “So,” he says quietly, “You’re really doing everything you can to avoid going back home.”

Dan doesn’t answer for a moment, leaving only the sound of their shuffling and stacking to echo around the warehouse. It actually startles him when he does speak up again. 

“Wokingham isn’t home,” he says in a small voice. Phil looks over at him. 

Dan’s staring up at the ceiling, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip. “I mean, neither is Manchester,” he continues. Phil doesn’t know if maybe the lighting is playing tricks on him, or if Dan’s eyes look a little wet. “It’s fine, I don’t hate it. It’s just,” he breathes in and looks back down, and Phil knows then that the lighting wasn’t being tricky before, because he sees a single tear trickle its way down Dan’s cheek. He wipes it away hastily before turning towards Phil.

“Do you ever feel like you’re just missing something?” He whispers, his tone almost pleading. “Like… your life isn’t terrible, and you’re surviving, but you don’t always understand the point? And you feel all alone, even when you’re not? And you just… desperately need something to hold onto?”

Phil’s breath catches in his throat when their eyes meet. “Something…” he continues, even more softly, “Or… someone?”

Phil’s head seems to move on its own as he nods in response. His chest and throat tighten up as he steps in a little closer, like Dan’s cracked something open inside of him and he’s feeling so much all at once, and he has no idea what to do before it completely consumes him.

“Yeah,” he answers simply. His voice breaks a little as he does.

“Yeah,” Dan breathes.

He’s not sure who initiates what happens next. If it’s him or Dan or if they really do jump each other at the exact same time, like they’re spontaneously supercharged magnets. All he’s sure of is one moment they’re standing apart, still staring at each other, and the next moment their lips are locked in a heated kiss, and Dan’s shoved up against one of the shelves with his hands buried in Phil’s hair, and Phil’s hands are pushed up under his shirt, feeling over the warm skin of his waist and hips and kissing, kissing, kissing like their lives depend on it, like they’re each other’s only tether to this physical plane.

They break apart gasping, once they absolutely can’t sustain how they’re kissing anymore without passing out. That’s when the reality of the situation washes over him. As he stands there still holding Dan’s hips, with his chest heaving and their lips just centimetres apart, he wonders how he’s supposed to back away from this. He wonders if he’s accidentally gone too far too fast, or if he misread this whole thing completely.

But he doesn’t have to wonder for long. Dan makes a soft, needy little sound and winds his arms around Phil’s shoulders, pulling him back in and Phil goes more than willingly. 

“There’s, um,” he mumbles between kisses, “There’s security cameras in here, I think.”

That’s something he probably ought to be more worried about, but he simply doesn’t have the capacity for much besides pure joy when Dan’s pressed so close to him.

Dan slides his hands down to Phil’s chest, fisting his hands in the fabric of his shirt and turning them so he’s pinned up against the shelves now. He sighs a little when his lips start wandering down over Phil’s jaw and neck. “System’s down,” he says.

Phil has no way of knowing if that’s true. He also couldn’t care less. Dan’s kissing him.  _ Dan  _ is  _ kissing him.  _ Nothing else matters at all.

But then Dan pulls away again, his expression suddenly apprehensive. And he bites his lip and looks into Phil’s eyes and he knows he’s asking him silently:  _ You want this, right? You want me, don’t you? _

And then it’s Phil’s turn to pull him back in, because the answer is  _ yes. _

_ A thousand times, yes. _

  
  


*

  
  


All things considered, it turns out to be one of the smarter things he’s done in his life. 

He’s never been good at getting himself up in the morning, his coffee addiction starting at the ripe old age of nine just so he could drag himself to primary school every day. But now, when the first stirrings of his consciousness remind him that he has to go to work, and going to work means seeing Dan, he practically can’t get out of bed fast enough.

Stupid sappy love songs were right, he muses. A kiss from the right person  _ can _ make you a whole new man.

Dan’s waiting for him next to the punch clock when he walks in. He seems engrossed in something on his phone but he looks up at the sound of the door, eyes brightening.

“Morning,” Phil greets him, unable to help the smile in his voice as he’s punching in. Dan smiles back at him, gently nudging the edge of Phil’s shoe with his own. They’re alone in the room, but they can’t be too careful. 

“Morning,” Dan says softly. There’s a mischievous little glint in his eye. “I had fun last night.”

Phil’s cheeks immediately grow hot, probably turning some unflattering shade of red, but that just makes Dan smile more. “Yeah,” he clears his throat awkwardly and shoves his hands into his pockets once he’s done with his punch-in. “Um, same. I had fun, too.”

He thinks his blush probably deepens even more as he thinks back on it. 

Their late night texting has been getting progressively flirtier, the more lunch breaks and closing shifts they spend making out in the warehouse, but just one joke last night from Phil about his recent dry spell had somehow unraveled them both. Their messages had gone from a little bit bolder, to suggestive, to raunchy, to downright graphic until Dan was ringing him for real, breathing hot and heavy down the line as Phil talked him off, before promptly returning the favour.

And now, he can’t help but feel like the space in between them is even more charged than before. And he hadn’t been handling that too well to begin with.

Dan hums and then glances quickly around the room before leaning in closer— _god, he smells so good—_ and pressing his slightly chapped lips to Phil’s cheek.

“See you out there,” he murmurs, his voice low and sultry and then he’s gone, out the break room and into the store, leaving Phil to silently curse him out for being so hot so early in the morning. 

He takes a moment to pull himself together before following him out.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s only about two hours before they’re back in the break room together. 

Dan is biting his lip, trying to keep his expression schooled and serious as he gently places their first aid kit’s single-use ice pack over Phil’s brow bone. Phil, for his part, fails to see what’s so amusing about the situation.

“Who gets that upset about a Terry’s Chocolate Orange?” He grumbles, then crosses his arms and slumps down in his chair. 

“Hey,” Dan giggles—yeah,  _ giggles,  _ the absolute bastard—leaning forward from where he’s perched on the table so that he can keep holding the ice pack over the right spot. “Stop moving. And come on, there’s no way you don’t hate when shop workers try to make you buy stuff.”

“Uh, not enough to throw whatever it is back in their face,” Phil informs him. “Besides, I was doing my job. It’s not like I wanted to. And you could be a little more sympathetic, that could’ve been you if you hadn’t won the rock-paper-scissors.”

“You’re right,” Dan shakes his head dramatically and takes on an extremely mock-serious tone. “I’m sorry. Thank you for taking one for the team, Philip. You are so brave.”

He shoots Dan a tired look, but there’s nothing behind it. He’s cute even when he’s being a twat.

“Ah, Phil,” They’re interrupted by the sound of their manager walking through the door. Phil glances over to see her looking a little sheepish. “There you are. I’m, uh, sorry for telling you to be so pushy about those chocolate oranges. I didn’t think any of our customers were so… violent.”

He can’t help but crack a little bit of a smile at that. He’s sure he’ll find the situation funnier when his eyebrow stops throbbing. “No worries, Andrea,” he shrugs. “Barely felt it.”

A blatant lie. Dan casts him a skeptical look. 

“Well,” she sighs, “Some worries. Anyway, we’re not busy and we’ve got plenty of staff on today, so I figured you two could take the rest of the day off. You know, since you’ve been through a traumatic incident and Dan seems to be nursing you back to health. So, enjoy the rest of your day!” She gives them a little wave before turning and heading back out into the store, leaving them alone and looking at each other with slightly raised eyebrows. 

“Starbucks?” Dan suggests after a quiet moment, taking the ice pack off of Phil’s head and tossing it into the bin. 

“Starbucks as in… Starbucks  _ date?”  _ Phil asks in a rare moment of boldness. Dan looks down with a small, bashful smile and kicks his legs a bit where they’re dangling off the table.

“If you want it to be.”

“I do,” he says, and he doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed about how fast he answers. Especially when it only makes Dan smile wider.

“M’kay,” Dan hops off the table, bumping his shoulder against Phil’s as he heads over to his locker to grab his stuff. “It’s a date, then.”

Starbucks, however, is almost absurdly crowded, which they’d kind of predicted given how close it is to lunch hour and how good the holiday drinks have been this year. So they take their drinks to go and set off on a leisurely walk, which Phil doesn’t anticipate having a particular destination until they’re standing literally outside one of the university’s residence halls, and Dan gives him an expectant look.

Phil looks between him and the entrance to the building a couple times before he puts two and two together. 

“Oh,” he says stupidly, his stomach fluttering if this is going where he thinks it might be. “You live here.”

“Very astute deduction,” Dan rolls his eyes cutely and grabs his hand, tugging him in through the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

  
  


*

  
  


Dan’s room is pretty unremarkable. Standard university dorm furniture cramped into a too-small space, blank neutral walls, annoying fluorescents, and about half the room seems to be already packed away. He must be pretty eager to move out of it.

He’s still got his fairy lights strung up, keeping the room dimly lit while snow falls quietly outside the window. They’re both still catching their breath, Dan’s head resting on his chest with his eyes closed as Phil’s brain races to process what just happened.

Well, the best sex of his life is what just happened, he knows that much. He mostly just can’t really believe that he pulled it off. That he’s really laying in Dan’s bed right now, having had his hands and lips all over his body. And he’d thought that Dan was a good kisser and that he made such pretty noises when they were making out, but it turns out that was nothing compared to what he’s capable of in the bedroom. And Dan is so warm and pliant tangled up with him like this that Phil’s chest aches when he looks at him; at his kiss-swollen lips and the freckles lightly dotting his cheeks and his eyelashes fanned out beneath his bottom lashline, and the way his eyes flutter back open and his gaze meets Phil’s and he shifts up towards him and  _ oh, they’re kissing again now.  _ It draws a small, soft noise of surprise from the back of his throat but then he’s kissing Dan back, one arm slung around his waist and the other sliding up his back to tangle into his hair.

“Are you sure you were having a dry spell before this?” Dan murmurs against his lips between kisses. “That didn’t feel very out-of-practice to me.”

“I’m very sure,” Phil breathes. He kisses him deeper as he thinks back over the way Dan’s eyes had practically rolled back into his head when Phil pushed inside him. How he’d held his legs up, gripping tightly behind his knees to hold himself open, how he’d moaned and begged:  _ fuck, yes, harder, harder, oh my god, yes, fuck— _ and he has to stop the memory train right there before he gets too worked up.

Dan kisses his cheek. “So it’s gonna be that good every time?”

Phil’s heart lifts a little bit at Dan’s wording. “Every time?” He whispers.

Dan stills, seeming to realize the implications of what he’s said just a moment too late. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, and rolls away, and Phil feels cold and empty without him to hold. He frowns and turns onto his side. 

Dan’s looking at him sadly.

“I’ve been having so much fun with you, I forgot you have a life to go back to after this,” Dan explains, in response to Phil’s unspoken question. “You have uni, and friends, and guys you can hook up with who aren’t directionless law school dropouts, and—”

Phil surges forward, capturing Dan’s lips in a slightly desperate kiss. Because he can’t have Dan getting down on himself—on  _ them— _ like this. They may have only been at this for a few weeks now, but the way he feels about Dan is special. It’s… different, stronger, than anything he’s ever felt before. The last thing he wants to do is let go of it.

“Please don’t say that,” Phil says. “You mean so much to me, Dan.”

Dan curls a little closer to him. It seems almost involuntary. “You know I have no clue what I’m doing, though.”

“Yeah?” Phil shakes his head a little. “So? I don’t either. I’ve got one semester left of this English degree and I know fuck all about what I’m gonna do with it.” 

He bites his lip, searching Dan’s expression for literally anything he can work with, but he’s pretty good at hiding what he feels. So he just has to continue on blindly. “But I know that I really like you. A lot. Enough that I don’t just wanna forget this when I go back to school, okay?”

Dan stays quiet, so Phil offers one last query, his voice breaking a little bit. “I mean, do you? Just wanna forget about all this?”

It takes a moment, but eventually Dan shakes his head slowly, his eyes glimmering a bit. “No,” he says. “I don’t. But—”

“No ‘buts,’” Phil says, “Just… hold on.” 

He sighs, then draws in a deep breath before sitting up. Dan follows his lead. He feels overly anxious as he reaches over the side of the bed for his backpack, grabbing hold of something green and soft and immediately hiding it behind his back, because he hasn’t wrapped it. He’d been saving it for later. But now, he supposes, is as good a time as any.

“I got you a Christmas present,” he says quietly. “I wasn’t gonna give it to you until Christmas Eve, but… I feel like now might be a better time.”

Dan looks at him warily, like he doesn’t quite understand what Phil’s saying. “You got me a present?” 

Phil shrugs and nods. Why wouldn’t he get Dan a Christmas present? 

“Yeah, of course I did,” he says, and brings it out from behind his back to hand it to Dan. “Happy Christmas.”

Dan’s eyes go wide as he reaches out, taking the present gingerly from Phil’s hands and into his own. 

“It’s a Tonberry,” he says, the smile in his voice clear as day as he runs his fingers over the top of the plushie’s head.

Phil nods. “That’s only half of it, though. You might wanna read what’s taped to the front of him.”

Dan looks down, one of his eyebrows lifting slightly when he notices the piece of paper, folded into quarters that’s stuck to the front of the Tonberry’s little cloak. Phil sucks in a deep breath as he watches him pull it off and carefully unfold it.

For a minute, Dan just stares, his eyes scanning back and forth over the page a couple times. Phil’s heart speeds up, his cheeks flushing as he waits for a reaction.

“It’s a train ticket,” he finally blurts, once he can’t hold it anymore. “From Manchester to York. A couple weeks into the semester, I thought… you could visit. If you wanted.”

Dan stares a little longer.

“If… you don’t want to…” Phil continues slowly, because he simply can’t bear the silence, “That’s also okay. I don’t want to pressure you, but I also didn’t want to go back to school without telling you how I—”

He’s cut off when Dan throws himself forward, landing heavily in his lap with his arms flung around Phil’s shoulders. He’s still clutching the Tonberry in one of his hands, Phil can feel it against his back, and he winds his arms tightly around Dan’s waist right away.

“I thought Christmas miracles were fake,” Dan mumbles into his shoulder. “But I think you might’ve just changed my mind.”

Phil’s face feels like it might actually split open, he’s smiling so wide. His cheeks hurt. He nudges the side of Dan’s head with his nose until he turns his head enough for Phil to see his eyes, happy and shining. The most perfect he’s ever looked.

“Thank you,” Dan says, his voice barely above a whisper now. Phil just nods a little bit in response. 

“So you’ll take a chance with me?” He asks, just so that he knows in no uncertain terms. It’s maybe a little overkill, but Dan doesn’t seem to mind. He leans in, closing the small gap between them and catching his lips in a slow, deep kiss. 

“Yeah,” he says in the brief moment that their lips part, before Phil tugs him back in again. “Yeah, I will.”

So Phil smiles into the next kiss, with his chest full of butterflies and the rest of the world falling away, and it’s the best feeling ever. He never wants to leave this perfect little Dan bubble.

Eventually he has to, when Dan pulls away with a small frown. “I feel bad,” he sighs, resting the Tonberry in his lap. “I haven’t gotten you anything. I mean, I’m going to, now that I know we’re doing this whole thing, but I just—”

Phil presses their mouths together again to cut him off, something he’s learning is extremely effective with Dan. 

“This is already the coolest present I’ve ever gotten,” he says, and he can practically  _ hear  _ Dan rolling his eyes, but that doesn’t matter. He’s telling the truth. 

He couldn’t possibly want anything more.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading & happy holidays everyone!!
> 
> post-reveal info:
> 
> find me/chat with me on tumblr @[lestered](https://lestered.tumblr.com/) and [reblog](https://lestered.tumblr.com/post/639154514554978304/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you-m-77k-he-finds) if you'd like!


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